Nevermore: Bell, Bristol House, Accursed and Suburbs

Genius at Work:  The Life and Times of Alexander Graham Bell by Dorothy Harley Eber was counted as quite a find by one of our Nevermore members.  While Bell is best known as the inventor of the telephone, he had a wide variety of interests in the sciences.  At his summer home in Nova Scotia, he had a small laboratory build so he could work on his many projects.  This book includes interviews with former employees and neighbors as well as information from family journals and letters.  Best of all, there are many splendid photos of Bell with some of his interests: hydrofoils, aircraft, etc.  There are also a number of family photos.  Our reviewer thought it was a marvelous introduction to a multi-talented man.  The book comes highly recommended.

The End of the Suburbs:  Where the American Dream Is Moving by Leigh Gallagher takes a look at how economic and societal changes are changing our communities. For years, the ideal was the house outside the city with a yard and lots of space. The result was a loss of walking communities, leading to traffic jams and congestion as people had to drive to their destinations instead of walking or taking public transportation.  Now smaller families, cost of transportation in both time and money, and an aging population are reversing that trend, leading people back into the cities. While Gallagher uses numbers and statistics to back up her assertions, she also introduces the reader to real people who explain the changes in lifestyle.  The book is a fascinating look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed told in a style that’s both thoughtful and entertaining.

While the novel Bristol House  by Beverly Swerling sounds as if it might be local, it’s actually set in London where Anne Kendall has been hired to locate several pieces of ancient Jewish artifacts that disappeared centuries earlier, during the reign of Henry VIII.  She rents a flat in Bristol House, and comes to believe that she’s being haunted by the ghost of a monk.  With its blend of history, mystic touches, romance, and ancient shady organizations, our reviewer felt it read more like a Dan Brown novel than anything else.  She did finish the book because she wanted to know what happened but was less than taken with the supernatural elements.

Another novel with supernatural elements is Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates.  Princeton, New Jersey  in the Gilded Age appears to be a genteel town but there are dark forces at work. Daughters of the town’s elite are disappearing, and there’s a strange, vaguely European stranger hanging around.  The book is termed a Gothic and is peopled with some famous characters such as Woodrow Wilson and Jack London. How much you like this novel may hinge on how well you like Oates’ work.



The Nevermore Book Club meets every Tuesday at 11:00 AM in the Frances E. Kegley Conference Room upstairs.  Doughnuts from the Blackbird Bakery are served!